


Baby sitting

by Zoya113



Category: Black Friday - Team StarKid, The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Domestic, F/M, Family Vibes, Fluff, Kissing, trying to be adults
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-26 02:27:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21366652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya113/pseuds/Zoya113
Summary: Emma’s stressed about being a good enough aunt. Paul doesn’t want her to stress
Relationships: Paul Matthews/ Emma Perkins
Comments: 4
Kudos: 63





	Baby sitting

**Author's Note:**

> A year of being a paulkins stannie payed off and my reward was Black Friday however Paul and Emma are so unqualified to be around children

“Aunt Emma, can I have some breakfast?” 

Paul’s heart swelled whenever Tim called her that. ‘Aunt Emma,’ it was perfect. He loved the way Emma had to hide the excited, little smile on her face but he didn’t bother trying.

“Of course Tim! What do you want? I can get you cereal or toast, I could cook something if you want. Say it and it’s yours.” She had all her attention on him as she waited for his answer. Her eyes followed each of his movements, no matter how minuscule. 

“Really? Pancakes!” He asked. 

“Pancakes? Yeah! I can do that.” 

Paul moved out of the way as Emma raced to the kitchen, her hands pushing past all the half-empty boxes.   
“So uh, Tim, you like pancakes?” He leant over by the couch to talk to the boy in an attempt to fill the silence. 

“Yeah, mum used to make them really good,” he nodded. “Dad won’t make them for me because he said only mum could make them that good.” 

The sound of Emma turning on her shoes grabbed his attention. 

One bottle of pancake mix and a jug of milk clenched in her hands and a wide-eyed look on her face. “She used to make pancakes?” 

“Mhm, really good ones,” Tim’s nonchalance juxtaposed Emma’s pale face. 

He hurried over to her side, taking the bottles from her tense grip.   
Her hands immediately flew to her forehead.   
“Maybe I should make them,” he offered. Emma was going to beat herself up for the next ten years if she couldn’t do it like her sister. That was stress she didn’t need. 

“No, no, I can do it!” She snatched them back, dropping them on the table to begin her search for the pans.   
“So,” Emma tried to start up the conversation again. “Your mum’s pancakes, huh?”

“Yeah. They were so good. They were my favourite,” he smiled, his hands clasping together. 

Paul saw Emma’s eye twitch and placed a hand on her shoulder to offer some comfort. 

She swatted his hand off her, grabbing the cartons again and shoving them back into the cupboard. “Hey! You know what? Let’s not have hah,” she rolled her eyes, “boring old pancakes. Your dad’s not home we don’t have to listen to like, the rules! I know what we should have for breakfast, chocolate! Who doesn’t love chocolate?” She threw her hands out like she had just come up with the best idea. 

“Yeah, chocolate sounds pretty cool, huh?” Paul cooed, sounding far more impressed and invested than usual. He glanced over at Emma who hadn’t even acknowledged what he had said. 

“Cool, aunt Emma!” Being a child, Tim knew no better. He bounced off the couch and raced to the kitchen to search through the cupboards. 

“Don’t tell your father,” Emma quickly followed up. 

As the child started his feast Paul put his arm around Emma’s shoulder. She was calm for now. He lead her back over to the couch where her relief and exhaustion showed itself through the way she tossed herself down on the couch.   
“Wow, you’re pretty cool huh, aunt Emma?” Paul joked. 

“I’m cool, aren’t I? I brought games and movies and snacks. I’m really owning this aunt game right now!” She gave him a confident, self assured nod but her smile wavered and her eyes searched his for assurance. 

“Yeah, look at him! He’s smiling. You’re doing great,” Paul pointed out. He kept his hand on his shoulder, trying to pull her into his lap.

“Do you think he’s happy? D’you think he likes me?” 

“Yeah, just look. He was really happy to see you, Em,” he looked deep into her eyes, trying to find some sort of recognition from her. 

Emma scooted to the other side of the couch as Tim came to sit back down between them. 

“So Tim, we’re having fun right?” Paul tried to lead him on.   
Emma needed some sort of validation or she’d go insane. 

“Mhm!” He grinned through a mouthful of caramel chocolate. “Thanks, aunt Emma! Mum never let me have chocolate for breakfast. No candy until after midday.” 

Emma’s eyes slitted, confused as to what she really should be doing. “Jane said no chocolate?” 

“Not before midday. Sugar is bad for your teeth,” he repeated his mother’s words. 

“Cool, cool. That’s right. Sugar is bad for your teeth.” She got up from the couch to tidy up the rest of the chocolate, putting it in as high a shelf as she could reach. 

“So what-how did your mum like? What did you guys like to do for fun? How about we play one of these cool games I brought?” She retrieved a game from her bag, waving it out in front of her. 

“Cool! I’ll set up the TV! That’s so cool, aunt Emma!”

“Hey, they’re multiplayer! You want to verse me?” Paul helped him untangle the wires of the console. “I used to love these games as a kid. I bet I still have it in me, you must be pretty good too!” 

Emma brought the games over to him for him to choose. Paul made the move to select Mario Kart, one of his favourite time-killers, but Emma slapped it out of his hand with a deathly glare.   
“Did you not hear the part about the cars!?” She hissed. “Play, god, I don’t know what these are! Let the kid choose!”

“The winner gets to verse Emma!” Tim cheered, licking the last of the chocolate off his lips and picking another Mario game.

Emma slipped the game into the console before hurrying back to the couch like she was missing out on something if she wasn’t sitting next to him. 

“Wow, you’re pretty good at this game, huh?” She shot a glare at Paul when she noticed he was beating Tim. 

“Yeah, but Paul’s better!” 

Paul laughed anxiously. “Oh you know. I’m not as good as I used to be! These are my old games, I haven’t played in a while.”

“Oh! No wonder you’re so good. I thought they were Emma’s!” He didn’t even look over at her, too focused on the TV screen. 

“Oh, I don’t have games,” Emma scrambled to come up with an answer. “When I was eighteen I moved out! I didn’t take much with me! I couldn’t. So, no games. Jane had games though! I didn’t want to make my dad mad by taking anything expensive. I didn’t have like, any consoles while I was travelling.”

“Oh. I know. Mum said you were really busy travelling. That’s why you never came to meet us,” he explained rather calmly, jerking his hands to the side to have his character turn on the screen. 

Paul flinched so much that he lost control of his character, falling off the ledge and dying. He moved to butt in but Tim continued. 

“Grandpa always said confusing things about you so it’s cool to meet you for once,” he nodded. “Like, how you left the house so young. He was always really angry about you not coming home for ‘big events.’”

Paul wasn’t going to let the conversation lead that way. “Hey! Well Em has lots of cool games now. You can play them when you come to our house, how about that! What’s your favourite?”

“Ooh! Can I tell you about it? Dad doesn’t understand them so he doesn’t like to talk about them.”

“How about you tell me huh? You don’t want to distract Paul, that’d be an unfair contest and then you aren’t really showing off your cool, gamer skills!” Emma tried, looking hopefully at him. “Look! See! You just got a red little ball up there, that’s really neat! They must be rare, right?”

“Oh, aunt Emma,” he sighed. “That’s a red shell. They aren’t rare. You just get them by luck. It’s nothing to do with how good I am. You know what’s cool? Look at Paul’s score! It’s not that I don’t want to tell you about my games, I just don’t think you’d understand,” he shrugged, very oblivious to the hurt in her expression. 

“Ooh, no, that’s cool! I get it! I’m just gonna go and get some other cool stuff done.” She hopped off he couch, ducking out around the corner. 

Paul tried to watch her go but couldn’t follow her with his eyes for too long without losing control of the game. 

“I’ve never played this game on the PlayStation before. Only on my old DS. I like the other Nintendo games a lot more. I really like legend of Zelda, have you played that, Paul?” 

“Yeah, all of them. You know, I work with computers! So I know all kinds of cool tech stuff. You know what? I think I have something pretty cool in my bag. I’ll go get it. You wait here okay?”

Paul paused the game and got up, headed after Emma. He knocked gently on the bathroom door. “Aunt Emma?” He tried to tease playfully, but when he opened the door she was standing there in front of the mirror with a tear stained face. 

Her eyes were already dry, like she hadn’t let it last for more than a few seconds. “What do you want?” She grumbled. “Don’t leave Tim by himself, we’re supposed to be baby sitting.” 

“Well I wanna look after you too, you know, right?” He put his hands around her waist, gently guiding her to look at him. “What’s up? Things aren’t going well?”

“That kid hates me.”

“No he doesn’t. Haven’t you heard all the cool stuff he’s saying about you?”

“He hates me! Didn’t you hear that?”

“He isn’t holding it against you for leaving! You’re reading into it!” He shook his head, locking eyes with her so she had to listen to him. “Babe, you’re doing great out there. He doesn’t hate you.” 

“I’m still nothing like Jane. I’m still being a total fuck up.” She wiped her eyes before the tears even had a chance to fall. 

“You aren’t!” He snapped. “Don’t say that, Emma! You aren’t messing anything up. Listen! He’s excited to get to know you! Hey, I bet he’d love to hear one of your Guatemala stories! What about that one where you kept that journal of all the different types of flowers? That’s pretty cool isn’t it? Or the seashell story? Or what-what about that weird guy who always tried to sell the hostel milk? Huh?” 

Emma shook her head, a miserable giggle breaking through at the memory. “Why’d he want to sell us milk so badly, man?”

“He wants to get to know you more, but you gotta come out there and talk to him, okay? He doesn’t want you to be Jane he wants you to be you.” 

“It’s just my dad never wanted me to be around them. I was like the embarrassing family secret. I’m so done fucking things up but I just can’t help it,” she put her head on his chest. “And I’ve been so stressed I’ve been yelling at you! I don’t mean it I’m just pissed that I’m not enough right now-“ she was cut off as Paul leant in to kiss her. 

“Don’t say that. We aren’t talking about your asshole dad. We’re talking about how cool you are, Emma.” He kissed her again. “Let’s put the games away! We can just sit down and talk with him! I’ll shut my mouth. He’ll love to meet you.” 

“But what if-?”

He put his arms all the way around her to catch her when he kissed her a little harder this time. “If I hear any more of that self doubt I’m gonna get mad, Em. You’re the coolest! Anyone would love to have you as an aunt.”

“But my dad said-“

“No!” He kissed her again, pressing her against the wall. “I don’t care about him. Neither does Tim.”

“Let’s never have kids, Paul,” she told him, hugging him back. “Let’s just get dogs. This is too stressful.” 

“You don’t think we’d be good parents?”

“Can’t handle the stress,” she mumbled into his chest. “No kids. Only dogs. Also that bumper car thing? You can’t be a dad, Paul.” 

“Okay. If that’s what you want, Em,” he laughed. “Just no more beating yourself up like that.” 

“I’ll think about it,” she started, only to be shut up by another, deeper kiss. 

He slid his hands up to her shoulder blades, running his fingers through her hair. 

He could feel her hands grabbing onto his jumper tightly, letting her guilt and pain ebb away as he kissed her harder. 

He wasn’t going to let her hurt like that. She was doing her best and she deserved to be happy. 

“Hey, Paul you were taking too long so I came to find you- uh...” 

Paul couldn’t pull away from Emma fast enough. 

His fingers were still tangled in her hair and her hands were still on his hips. 

Tim’s face was wide and surprised, looking the couple up and down in an attempt to figure out what was going on. 

“Uh, Tim. We’re just- we’re adults and this is perfectly fine and we’re just having a moment.”

“Okay!” Tim was still a little to surprised to lower his voice. “Uncle Paul, were you still going to show me that cool stuff you brought?” He ran his hand under his nose. “Aunt Emma, we finished our round. Will you come play with me now? I’ll show you my favourite games.”

“Uh sure, kid,” Emma and Paul said in unison, pulling their hands back to straighten out their clothes and hair. 

“Cool!” He smiled, settled. “Let’s go!” He skipped off. 

“Yeah,” Emma sighed. “We’re never having kids,” she was smiling despite her words. “Way too stressful.” 

“Way too stressful,” Paul agreed, wiping the blush off his face. “Did you hear? He called me uncle,” he elbowed Emma playfully. “We’re never having kids. Tim’s fine enough for us.”


End file.
